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Tag: Kindle Fire HD

  • Kindle Fire HD Challenges Apple’s Dominance

    Amazon announced a lot of Kindles today at their press event. The Kindle Paperwhite is already looking pretty sweet and the cheaper standard Kindle is much appreciated. Despite all these great new Kindle announcements, the star of the show was the Kindle Fire HD. It’s an impressive device that should have Apple and Google concerned.

    First and foremost, let’s take a look at this things’s specs. The Kindle Fire HD comes in two flavors – 7-inch and 8.9-inch. Both of them will feature 16GB of onboard memory and a TI OMAP4470 processor that Amazon claims is more powerful than the Nvidia Tegra 3 that powers the Nexus 7. The new iPad’s A5X processor is clocked at 1GHz while the OMAP4470 can be clocked up to 1.8GHz. If used effectively, the Fire HD could easily outperform the new iPad.

    Apple’s iPad still holds a few key areas of dominance. Namely, the screen size on the iPad (10-inches) is still bigger than the biggest Kindle Fire HD. The new iPad also features the spectacular retina display that has a max resolution of 2048×1536. The Kindle Fire HD features a resolution of 1920×1200. Both displays are above 1080p, but the iPad is the clear winner here. The Nexus 7’s paltry 1280×800 resolution can’t even compete.

    The price is where things go directly to Amazon’s favor. The 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is priced at a very affordable $199 whereas the 8.9-inch model will retail for $299. The 16GB model of the new iPad is priced at $499. Beyond size and resolution, there’s not much difference between the two devices.

    Amazon sweetened the deal even more with an announcement of a 32GB Kindle Fire HD with 4G LTE connectivity for only $499. The iPad equivalent goes for $729. Even better, Amazon will be offering their own data plan that only costs $50 a year. Apple offers 4G LTE through either AT&T or Verizon. Both carriers aren’t as cheap when it comes to data.

    Is Apple suddenly in trouble with the announcement of new cheaper, and possibly superior, Kindles? Of course not. Apple has the brand recognition and power that drives people to forsake food for a month just to afford a new iPad or iPhone. What Apple should be concerned about is a quote from Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos on why they’re able to offer their devices for such a cheap price:

    “We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices.”

    That sentence reaffirms Amazon’s commitment to content over everything else. It’s content that drives the Amazon App Store to be more profitable than Google Play. It’s that content that drives people to download Kindle exclusive books more than 100 million times. It’s that commitment to content that had the original Kindle Fire owning 22 percent of the tablet market.

    For their part, Apple has plenty of content as well. The combination of iTunes and the Appstore have been ridiculously profitable for Apple. The real difference is that Amazon has a strong retail background. They know how to best sell content and offer regular discounts and promotions to get content into people’s hands.

    The Kindle Fire HD is a challenge that Amazon is issuing to its competitors. As Bezos said today, the Kindle Fire HD is a “hardware device as a service.” Amazon offers some of the best service in both the physical and digital industries. Combining them into a single product is pretty awe inspiring.

  • Amazon Announces Multiple New Kindle Devices

    Amazon has been leading up to something big over the past week. The Kindle Touch went out of stock last week and the Kindle Fire followed soon after. It was suspected that these devices would get a refresh at today’s Amazon event and they didn’t disappoint.

    Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos came out swinging with a new Kindle called the Kindle Paperwhite. The device is a replacement for the Kindle Touch, but it’s so much more. The device features what Amazon is calling the “Nanoimprinted light guide.” In essence, it’s a frontlit screen that shines a light down to the display for more natural lighting.

    As for specs, the device is 9.1mm thin and only weighs 7.5 ounces. The most amazing part of the Paperwhite, however, is its battery life. Amazon says that the Paperwhite can be left on for 8 weeks straight. It features a new UI that makes shopping for books even easier. Last but certainly not least, the Paperwhite can track your reading speed and let you know the average time it would take you to finish a book.

    The Kindle Paperwhite is available now for preorder for only $119. The 3G version will be available for $179. Both will ship on October 1.

    After the Paperwhite, Bezos announced an update to the original Kindle e-reader. The original was priced at $79, but the new one will only be $69. The only difference between the two is that the case is now black and it features a better screen. Still, it’s hard to beat an e-reader at $69. You’ll be able to get your hands on the new Kindle much sooner than the Paperwhite as it ships on September 14.

    After the new Kindle announcements, Bezos said that the Kindle Singles series has seen increible success. If you’re unaware, the Kindle Singles program is essentially a collection of short stories from prolific authors. To date, Amazon has sold 3.5 million Singles and they’re wanting to take it further. To that end, they announced Kindle Serials. It’s essentially an episodic book where readers will put down $2 for the first story in the serial and receive future stories as they become available.

    Bezos was obviously saving the best for last as he announced two new versions of the Kindle Fire. The original Kindle Fire will get more RAM and be 40 percent faster than the original Fire. Even with the improvements, the price of the original Fire will be reduced to $159. It will be available on September 14.

    The Kindle Fire HD is where it’s really at though. The device is sporting an 8.9-inch screen with a resolution of 1920×1200. The Fire HD is powered by an OMAP4470 processor from Texas Instruments. It can be clocked up to 1.8 GHz, but it’s unclear if the Fire HD will be set at that speed. The device also sports dual stereo speakers.

    The Kindle Fire HD will sport two wireless antennae to support dual-band Wi-Fi connections at 2.4Ghz and 5GHz. Bezos said this will allow people to download files at 40 percent faster rates than the competition.

    The Kindle Fire HD is also getting plenty of software support. Amazon has built an all new email app for the Fire HD that supports Gmail, Hotmal and Yahoo. Facebook and Skype will be building custom apps for the Fire HD. Skype’s app will take advantage of the front facing camera in the Fire HD.

    The Kindle Fire, both the regular and HD, will feature X-Ray for movies. It’s a pop-up that appears every time that you pause a movie. It will bring up bios and acting credits for all the actors in the film. It will also give recommendations based on the actors in the film.

    Amazon is also gunning for Apple’s dominance in the e-textbook field. They’re bringing X-ray to textbook and it’s pretty amazing. Students will be able to go from a textbook to Wikipedia articles and YouTube videos on the subject at hand. I wish I had something like that when I was in college.

    Bezos revealed that the Kindle Fire HD will actually be available in 7 and 8.9 inch versions. It will also feature an HDMI out for when you want to put something on the big screen.

    The 7-inch Kindle Fire HD will retail for $199 and be available on September 14. The 8.9 inch Kindle Fire HD will retail for $299 and be available much later on November 20. Both models will come equipped with 16GB of internal storage.

    Bezos said that they’re able to offer the Kindle at such low prices because they’ll make all that money back and then some from people purchasing products from Amazon. It’s a sound strategy and one that the video game industry has been using for years when underselling hardware.

    In a final surprise announcement, Bezos announced a 4G LTE model of the Kindle Fire HD that has 32GB of onboard memory. The 8.9-inch 4G model will retail for $499. It will also feature a new data plan that costs $50 a year. It offers 250 MB a month and 20GB of Cloud Storage. As a bonus, you’ll get $10 of Amazon Appstore Credit.

    In recap, Amazon pretty much nuked the competition in terms of pricing and features. Google had better come up with something fast. A 16GB 7-inch Kindle Fire HD for only $199 is far better than what the Nexus 7 offers. The 4G LTE $500 Kindle Fire should also have the iPad on notice. We’ll see how Apple responds next week during their event on September 12.

    [Image Credit: TechCrunch]